The Symptoms of My Insanity

by Mindy Raf

“What? He’s not in … What are you talking about?” I look over at Jenna, who’s now half smiling, rolling her eyes, and wiping up my spit take.

  “Oh please,” Meredith says, “it’s like … the way he looks at you when he’s not talking to you.”

  “What way?” I practically screech.

  “I don’t know, it’s like …” Meredith’s eyes roll up as she searches for the words.

  “Like he wants to marry you and have a hundred babies and live in a little house and be your boyfriend and husband and everything and stuff,” Cara bursts out, which is the most I’ve ever heard her say at once.

  “What are you, like five?” Meredith pokes her in the ribs as we head out of the room, giggling past the line of girls that Mr. Kippley is unsuccessfully trying to disband. That one sentence loops through my head as we walk: “The way he looks at you when he’s not talking to you.” But then the chaos in the lobby cuts through.

  “Ladies, if you’re confessing to the viral picture, the matter is now—”

  “But Mr. Kippley, it was me!”

  “It was me too!”

  “Why are we doing this, again?”

  “So Boobgirl doesn’t get suspended, duh.”

  “I can’t believe some stupid guy actually sent that.”

  “What if we get in trouble?”

  “We won’t—there’re too many of us.”

  “I don’t know …”

  “What if Jason sent your picture around?”

  “Jason’s my boyfriend!”

  “But what if he did?”

  “I would kick him in the balls.”

  “If I had those boobs, I’d send the pictures around myself.”

  “Sara, that’s not the point!”

  “Jenna? Izzy?” We turn to see Cathy Mason charging toward us. Cathy always takes giant steps when she walks, the kind of lengths you would need if you were climbing up stairs two at a time. Meredith and Cara disappear into the clump of girls being escorted back to class, while Cathy cuts Jenna and me off at the pass. She taps her right hand against the dance binder she’s pressing up against her chest, the charms on her multicolored bracelet swinging.

  “What are you two doing out here? Are you a part of this madness?”

  “No, just heading to class.” Jenna flashes an angelic, made-for-Cathy smile.

  “Oh, good. I’m just in such a state. It’s one thing after another. How are we supposed to get a message across that this behavior is unacceptable if there’s no punishment? But we can’t punish a hundred-plus girls, now can we?”

  “No, we can’t.” Jenna grins and then shifts to a straight face. “It’s a shame.”

  “But, you know, I am relieved, actually, because now we can get down to business, because I said to her, I said ‘Jeanine, all these girls shouldn’t be punished for lending their innocence to one marked lamb,’ right? Right, Izzy?”

  “Um … right, yes, Cathy.”

  “Bathroom stalls, teachers’ lounges,” she says, as if she’s listing porn titles. “Make it legal and get a room. I had a room. One sacred, matrimonial room.”

  “Mom!” Jenna yelps as I turn my head aside to swallow my smile.

  “Well anyway”—Cathy points her index finger in the air at no one in particular, her charms clinking against the bracelet—“we aren’t forgiving or forgetting, we’re just moving in a forward direction.”

  I look at Jenna, then back at Cathy, and nod solemnly.

  “Mom, we gotta get to class.”

  “Yes,” I add, “but I’ll take care of my dance list now that it’s … still on.”

  “Yes, yes, okay. Do what you can, dear. Jenna and I will take care of it. Oh, that reminds me, here.” She extends her arm to Jenna, which has three shopping bags hanging off it like she’s a rolling rack. “I brought the twine and the rest of the supplies to make the donation card trees. Can you start that tonight, please?”

  “Yeah, I’ll take care of it.” Jenna grimaces, transferring the bags to her arm.

  “Love to your mom.” Cathy kisses her hand at me and waves us off.

  Jenna and I round the corner and head down the much quieter hall to our lockers.

  “Thanks again for today. That was … it was pretty amazing.”

  “It was pretty fun, wasn’t it?” Jenna grins. “I was all broad strokes, rallying the troops, and Meredith was awesome at organizing. You know, she’s not so … bobbly … all the time.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Jenna balances the bags with one hand and opens up her locker with the other.

  “Izzy, I’m sorry that … I’m sorry I didn’t do anything to … I feel like with you I could have maybe seen this all coming or—”

  “Well, I think you kind of did.” I cut my eyes to her. When she doesn’t say anything, I go on. “But maybe I wouldn’t have listened anyway. It was … Blake.”

  “Yeah.” She nods. “It’s just that I gave Meredith a hard time about not knowing about Jacob, and for being that girl with Jacob … when really it was me. I’m that girl.”

  “No. You’re not. I’m not either. And neither is Meredith. There’s really no such thing as that girl.”

  “When we were figuring this all out last night, I didn’t really think it would work. I thought there’s no way everyone’s doing this. But they did.”

  “I know.” I shake my head and laugh. “Emily Belfry?”

  “Right? She was amazing. She designed the mass e-mail.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah, it’s crazy. Seeing everybody today made me … I don’t know, I guess it made it … not okay, but … you know. Better.” She makes room in her locker for the dance supply bags. “Not that it’s ever going to be okay, what happened with Nate. But …” She slams her locker door. “Do you know what I mean?”

  “I think so …”

  “’Cause I did this for you. I did. I just didn’t realize until it was all happening, how …” She glances at me and trails off, this weird look on her face.

  “What?”

  “Well, I guess it was good for me too. I needed it too, I mean.” Then she grabs my arm, hauling me down the hallway. “Man, I wish you could have seen Mrs. Preston’s face when I told her it was me.” Jenna laughs. “I definitely caught her staring at my T-shirt, comparing my baby chesticles to your pixelated lady curves.”

  “Oh no!” I laugh. “Poor Mrs. Preston.”

  “You know, it actually was a really good picture of you. You’re very photogenic.”

  I shake my hands in front of my face, palms out, like trying to erase what she just said.

  “I mean it. You have seen it, obviously.”

  “Briefly. Just once. I’ve deleted it from my in-box like twenty times already.”

  “No, no, you have to take a good, long look at it. Own it,” she says, fiddling with her phone. And then mine starts beeping.

  “Jenna!” I say, seeing she’s just sent me the picture.

  “Save it. Make it your screen saver.”

  “You’re hilarious,” I say, holding my phone now like it’s contraband.

  “What is going on over there?” Marcus passes us by, shaking his head.

  “Free pizza outside Preston’s office,” Jenna ad-libs.

  “What? Really?”

  “You better hurry!” Jenna shouts.

  “You’re so mean.” I shake my head, watching Marcus take off down the hall, and then realize that Jenna’s watching me watch Marcus. We stare at each other silently for a second before Mrs. Kerns walks by us and says, “Hello ladies” in a Mice Skating sweatshirt. Then, for the first time in days, I let myself really enjoy a full-out, totally obnoxious, belly-snort laugh.

  • • •

  Twenty minutes have passed and I’ve gone as far as covering my blank canvas in shades of gray. Whoopee. Way to go, Izzy. I can hear singing through the walls, and debate just giving up on this last piece and watching another dress rehearsal instead.

  I stare at the gray plane before
me. No. Come on. Just paint something. Anything. I wipe my hands down my smock, and in a pathetic attempt at procrastination, I slide my phone on again to check my messages. Of course it’s the same as it was ten minutes ago, just one unread picture message from Jenna.

  I set my phone back down and rip off a new paper towel. I dip it back into my gray. I swirl my hand around the canvas, darkening and thickening from the bottom up. Then I squeeze out some yellow and blue onto my palette. I’m trying to get this specific color that’s snap-shotting around in my head. I mix some more color in, and then add some white, then I mix, and add, and mix, and add, and then abruptly stop, dropping my brush down so quickly to my side that paint splatters all over my blue jeans. But I don’t care. I’m transfixed by this color. I put my palette down, backing away from the canvas as if it’s about come alive or something.

  I wipe off my hands and slide my phone on again. I try and keep my hand steady, but it’s already starting to shake a little. I manage, though, to open up my latest picture message. And there it is: my boob, my bra, and my fuzzy green sweater.

  I don’t know how long I stay staring at it, but I know it’s long enough where the picture starts to lose its context. The subject starts to blur into the background, the planes merge, and it no longer looks like a boob, a bra, and a sweater, but just pixels and colors and shapes and shadings and dark and light and greens and pinks and reds and oranges and whites and browns and yellows.

  I flip my phone upside down and stare some more. I turn my phone on its side, and stare some more. I zoom in. I zoom out. I zoom back in. Then I get out my sketchpad.

  CHAPTER 27

  I think it’s beginning too.

  The waiting area on the surgery floor is a lot nicer than the one on Dr. Madson’s floor. It’s got bigger chairs and more privacy, not being smack in the middle of everything, and there’s a bunch of private rooms to go into if you want to be alone. One of them even has a fancy, super-loud, instant cappuccino machine in it.

  “Gin!” Pam says, throwing down her cards while taking a bite of her tuna sandwich. “Again?” I shake my head and lift one of Allisa’s magazines off her body. She’s passed out with her earbuds blaring, so I don’t think she’ll mind. I look at some pictures of a bunch of girls all wearing the same color dress, and then start reading an extremely engrossing article about the kinds of things celebrities do that “real” people do too.

  I try to occupy my mind with this useless information, like how many face cards I have in my hand, or the name of a celebrity grocery store in a city I don’t live in, where I can buy the best gluten-free food. That fact led to me treating myself to a Symtomaniac fix about celiac disease, and gluten intolerance, which actually did help pass the time.

  I’m about to drop Allissa’s magazine back on her body when she bolts up, now wearing her earbuds like a necklace. “What? What? What happened?”

  “Nothing. No news.”

  “What’s taking so long?” she says groggily, opening and closing her mouth, like she’s registering the post-nap taste in her mouth.

  “I’m sure we’ll hear something soon,” Pam says. “It probably takes some time afterward to …”

  “Bring people out of anesthesia,” I conclude, handing Allissa a piece of gum.

  “Oh God, not again. I really don’t need to hear those kinds of words right now, Izzy.”

  “What words?”

  “Words—medical words, like … anesthesia.”

  “Anesthesia?” I ask. “The word anesthesia bothers you?”

  “Stop saying it!”

  We all stare down the hall toward Dr. Madson’s office, and then back at each other.

  “Allissa,” I finally say. “You know what anesthesia is, right?”

  “Yes, Dr. Izzy.” She hops up. “I need coffee.”

  “Sorry,” I say, following her down the hall and into the cappuccino machine room, “I just don’t understand why that’s a scary word. I mean, yes, it’s dangerous when not administered correctly, and Mom is really thin, but it’s not like—”

  “Okay, stop.” Allissa grabs a cup and pushes the button on the machine. “Why do you have to go there all the time?”

  “I don’t know,” I say over the gurgling, whirring, and hissing. “So I won’t … go insane, I guess.”

  “Well, hearing all those details, all the time, kind of makes me go insane, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay. I know.” I grab a cup for myself, thinking about Marcus trying to talk details with me the other day.

  Allissa takes a sip of her instant cappuccino, makes a blech face, puts the cup down on the side table, and takes her phone out of her pocket.

  “Which one of these do you like better?” She passes me her phone, which has a picture of two identical objects that I think are called credenzas.

  “Um … the black one.”

  “Izzy, they’re both black.”

  “Oh, sorry …”

  “I have to finalize for Stacy what we want for the attic.”

  “Oh.” I take another look. “The one with the silver handles.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. The other one is ‘tacky, tacky,’ but that one is ‘classy tacky,’ you know?”

  “Yeah,” I lie, and take a sip of my—barf—cloudy, coffee-flavored sugar water.

  “I know Mom’s birthday’s not for another couple weeks,” Allissa says, flipping through more pictures of furniture on her phone, “but I want to have this done for her, or nearly done soon. ’Cause she’ll want to work when she gets out of here, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So … you think she’ll like it?” Allissa asks.

  “What, the attic? The new furniture? Yes. She’s gonna flip out.”

  “She went gaga over your painting last year.” Allissa slumps down on the chair next to the machine. “She still brags about it to people. And what did I get her? A stupid pair of earrings.”

  “She loves those earrings!”

  “Eh.”

  I sit down next her.

  “I’m really sorry I charged those things to your card,” I tell her now.

  “It’s okay, I didn’t … I won’t rat you out. I guess you were just trying to help Mom.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter. Nothing I do, or did, really helped. I mean, I know facts and stuff, but who cares. It doesn’t … It didn’t help her.”

  “Izzy, there’s nothing you could have done. I mean, what could you have done?”

  “I don’t know, something! I heard her coughing, and I knew she wasn’t eating, and then I saw she posted in her chat room, and … She told me about her appointment with Dr. Madson before she told you and Pam, but I never said anything … useful, and now she’s—”

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference. Don’t make yourself more crazy than you naturally are.” She gives me a small smile. I smile back and take another sip of my cappuccino.

  “I’m not … I’m not moving away if anything … if she … you know …”

  “No, of course not, we’re both staying here. You’ll come live up here with me,” she says matter-of-factly, and I guess I look skeptical, because she adds, “I mean, once I get out of the dorms and get my own place.”

  I smile at her, nodding.

  “I’m so sick of being here,” she gasps out, drop-folding her upper body forward like a marionette. She pops back up, and then marionettes her neck over the back of the chair. She looks absolutely exhausted. But, at the same time, still kind of great. She’s managed to inherit that Mom gene that makes even a T-shirt and sweatpants look perfect. But I know underneath, like I do with Mom, that it’s not.

  I soon nudge her upright because Pam’s marching over to us with Dr. Madson right behind her. He looks more like a real surgeon now, in scrubs and one of those fancy masks around his neck. Pam has an “I’m crying, but it looks like I’m laughing” kind of cry. She’s holding one hand to her stomach and the other to her mouth while leaning back and shaking her shoulders up and down. />
  “What is it? What’s going on?” I stand up with Jell-O legs, and put a shaky arm around her.

  Twenty years go by, but finally Pam gets out, “She’s … she did good!”

  I drop my shoulders down and lean into Pam’s side.

  • • •

  A nurse named Carlos has led the three of us into the recovery room, where he’s telling us that Mom’s a “happy camper right now.”

  Which I think is think code for “super-drugged-up.”

  “… Pepse, gimme Pepse, wanna Pepsi,” Mom’s mumbling when we arrive. Which I think is a good sign, that she’s talking now.

  “Hi, Mom,” I say, trying to sound cheerful.

  She opens her eyes a little and squints at me. “Izzy, Izzy, Izzy,” she says, but kind of all together like it’s one name.

  “Yeah? Hi, Mom,” I repeat.

  Pam and Allissa both step around to the other side of the bed and say hi, murmuring encouraging words. Mom mumbles out their names and then says, “Whacha’ll doin’?”

  “Um … nothing much,” Allissa says.

  “’Kay, well, gimme Pepsi.”

  “Linda, everything’s going to be okay. Okay?” Pam says.

  “Okeydokey,” Mom mumbles. “Donlehem put me underneath withow cuttin’ my hair off.”

  “What?” Allissa says.

  “I need a cut before they put me underneath it ’cause my hair’s very irregular and s’not very regular. Is it regular?”

  “Looks … pretty regular to me, Mom,” I assure her.

  “Your hair looks great,” Allissa chimes in.

  “I gotta go underneath now so see you ssslater, ’kay?” Mom mumbles.

  “Linda, you’ve already gone under. It’s over now, okay?”

  “No, no, no, it’s the beginning, it’s all the beginning,” Mom insists.

  “No Mom, it’s all over. It’s over.” Allissa reaches for her hand.

  “Yes, it’s over Linda, it’s all over,” Pam says.

  “It’s all beginning. And I wanna wear my pink sweater. Not the Pepto-pink one. The other one. ’Kay? Donlehem do anything to me till I ge’my pink sweater on.”

  “Okay, Linda, whatever you say.” Pam is smiling.

  Then Carlos comes in again and tells us that Mom needs her rest. We kiss her good-bye while she continues to mumble something about Pepto-pink, her skin tone, and a Pepsi.